Letter 5 of 26

The letter E in braille

E is dots 1 and 5.

Dots 1-5

Unicode ⠑ — U+2811

How to recognise it

Dots 1 and 5 sit diagonally, top-left to middle-right. e is the most common letter in English, so it is worth over-learning this one until it is instant.

How this cell is built

E is one of the ten base shapes of decade 1, built from dots 1, 2, 4 and 5 only. Every letter from k onwards is one of these ten with extra dots added.

Easily confused with

These letters differ from E by a single dot, which is where reading errors actually happen. Drill them against each other rather than in alphabetical order.

Practice words

Each word below starts with E, written in Grade 1 so every letter has its own cell.

eat

end

easy

In Grade 2 this letter is also a word

Standing alone, E means “every”. Inside a longer word it is just the letter e. See the contraction reference for the full list.